The procps package contains a set of system utilities that provide
system information. Procps includes ps, free, skill, pkill, pgrep,
snice, tload, top, uptime, vmstat, pidof, pmap, slabtop, w, watch,
pwdx and pidwait.
The ps command displays a snapshot of running processes. The top command
provides a repetitive update of the statuses of running processes.
The free command displays the amounts of free and used memory on your
system. The skill command sends a terminate command (or another
specified signal) to a specified set of processes. The snice
command is used to change the scheduling priority of specified
processes. The tload command prints a graph of the current system
load average to a specified tty. The uptime command displays the
current time, how long the system has been running, how many users
are logged on, and system load averages for the past one, five,
and fifteen minutes. The w command displays a list of the users
who are currently logged on and what they are running. The watch
program watches a running program. The vmstat command displays
virtual memory statistics about processes, memory, paging, block
I/O, traps, and CPU activity. The pwdx command reports the current
working directory of a process or processes. The pidwait command
waits for processes of specified names.
